Six rooms where the numbers
say less than they should.
The work is the same in each: reconcile the figures to the documents, restate the period that has already closed, and hand the other side something they can test rather than something they have to believe. What changes is who is being convinced, and of what.
Listing brokers
The trailing numbers are soft. Stop letting them set the price.
Every buyer opens with last year's figures and a reason they justify a discount.
Twelve months, restatedBuyer's representatives
Your number is the honest one. Show the arithmetic that proves it.
A buyer's offer usually arrives as an assertion with a spreadsheet attached.
What the price actually yieldsBorrowers and their advisors
A breach and a failing business look identical on a summary page.
A covenant test produces one number, and that number cannot tell a credit committee whether it is looking at a solvency problem or a working-capital problem wearing a solvency costume.
Curing the covenant, both waysLenders and receivers
Hold or act. Make it defensible in writing.
The decision is rarely about whether the borrower is viable.
The test it would never have failedBusiness brokers
Add-backs in the open beat add-backs in a footnote.
Owner-operated businesses are sold on normalized earnings, and every buyer has been burned by a normalization they could not check.
Earnings, and what they are worthFounders and operators raising capital
A plan they can interrogate beats a plan they must believe.
Investors discount decks because decks are built to be believed rather than tested.
Calibrated to the actuals first